“FIRST, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently”, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

Part 1: Employee Engagement Research

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
is based on 2 Gallup Research Studies taken over the last 25 years. – the largest study of its kind ever undertaken. The first one zeroed in on Employee satisfaction and productivity, and asked “What Do the Most Talented Employees Need from their Workplace?” The answer was that talented employees needed great managers. Gallup recorded interviews with over 80,000 managers at different management levels, with different styles of managing, and a million employees, to find out the core attributes of great managers and employee performance.

Their findings regarding employee engagement are intriguing. One conclusion is that key employees do not fit a mold. You should not, and cannot, try to make them all behave the same. They bring their own core values and behaviors to the workplace, and each one contributes their own perspective and way of doing things. They may react differently to the same treatment. Thus, if you do not see them as individuals, with inclinations and behaviors formed by their unique selves, you may lose the best part of each of them.

If organizations view employee satisfaction as not being critical to the company’s success, consider these eye-opening facts stated by Gallup:

“Actively disengaged employees erode an organization’s bottom line while breaking the spirits of colleagues in the process. Within the U.S. workforce, Gallup estimates this cost to be more than $300 billion in lost productivity alone. In stark contrast, world-class organizations with an engagement ratio near 8:1 have built a sustainable model using our approach. As organizations move toward this benchmark, they greatly reduce the negative impact of actively disengaged employees while unleashing the organization’s potential for rapid growth.”

“Through rigorous research, we have identified 12 core elements – the Q12 — that link powerfully to key business outcomes. These 12 statements emerged as those that best predict employee and workgroup performance.”

In deference to the Gallup Organization, I won’t lay out those 12 elements here, but I provide a link from Gallup for you to uncover them yourself.

Employee Engagement Overview

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll discuss Gallup’s research into great management.